Hi friends! For my next non-traditional career blog interview, I decided to have Collin Blout, a current medical school applicant, interview Dr. Gowri Aragam. Dr. Aragam is currently a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and co-founder of Brainstorm, the Stanford lab for Mental Health Innovation.
1) Describe your current roles at Stanford Brainstorm and Massachusetts General Hospital
At Stanford Brainstorm, I work with a team to improve mental health product development using evidence-based medicine, design, tech, and business. I lead a course on mental health innovation, and consult for large tech companies and non-profit organizations. At Massachusetts General Hospital, I am a clinical instructor in psychiatry and part of a program that allows me to practice at an outside institution.
2) How do you balance your clinical work as a psychiatrist with your responsibilities at Stanford Brainstorm?
I do shift work at an ER so that I can compartmentalize my clinical responsibilities. This makes it easier to set shift into the other types of work that use different parts of my brain. My team scheduled specific times for our group meetings and I set aside time for my personal workload which allows me transition from one project to the next with more ease
3) What does your typical weekly schedule look like?
Typically my week consists of working 1-2 Psych ER shifts at the county hospital. The other days are spent working on projects for consulting clients, meeting with prospective clients, writing, research or meetings with my co-founders and lab fellows to discuss projects, and organizational strategy.
4) Describe a project at Brainstorm that inspired you.
My team worked with Pinterest to co-develop the “compassionate search” feature that provides evidence-based activities to the growing number of Pinterest users who search for mental health information. This project demonstrated the power of collaboration between medicine, design, and tech and how we can apply best practices in mental health in creative ways to reach the greatest number of people who need help.
5) How has your medical training helped the effectiveness/impact of your work?
The main goal of Brainstorm is to help design products that improve people’s mental health based on current research. My medical training has helped to reach this goal by teaching me how to look comprehensively at a patient while also being able to engage and build trust with them. In turn this has led to better overall understanding of treatment methods and innovative product development.
6) What advice would you give medical students and residents interested in learning more about this type of career path?
- Find your interest and passion and learn to communicate it clearly with others
- Reach out and be open to learning from people in other fields and medical specialties
- Engage in other people’s understanding of medicine and how they view you and your interests
- Always stay true to yourself and be confident. Don’t be afraid to do things your own way even when your environment may question the route you are taking.
Interviewee Bio:
Dr. Gowri Aragam, MD, is a board-certified adult psychiatrist who is a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Mass General Hospital/ Harvard Medical School, and is co-founder of Brainstorm, the Stanford lab for Mental Health Innovation.
Dr. Aragam completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard College in Neurobiology. She then completed medical school the University of Massachusetts and psychiatry residency at MGH/McLean. She and her team developed the compassionate search function with Pinterest that was a finalist for a Fast Company innovation by design award and has expanded to over 9 countries.
Interviewer Bio:
Collin Blout graduated with a degree in Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology from UCLA in 2017. Since then he has been working at the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Institute as a research assistant and is currently applying to medical school.
Lee Squitieri is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital and associate physician policy researcher at RAND Corporation. These two roles are completely separate and independent. Thoughts and ideas expressed on her website and in this blog are her own, and do not represent those of Adventist Health White Memorial or RAND Corporation.